


The Accident

by wheel_pen



Series: Darkwood Eastport [27]
Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fish out of Water, Magic, Polygamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gillian and two of the kids are in a car accident. It’s not serious and they’ll be okay, but Cal and Luke aren’t helping things with their inexplicable rage at the other driver, to the point of trying to attack him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Accident

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe. I’ve given a lot of thought to the Darkwood culture, so if something seems confusing, feel free to ask. I hope you enjoy!

_Year four_

In stories, people always said it had all happened so fast. But in Gillian’s case, she felt like it had all happened in slow motion—the car coming towards her seemed to drift aimlessly, steadily, slowly. She knew what she had to do and thought she ought to have plenty of time to do it. But her body was responding in slow motion, too, it seemed—her hands gripped the wheel passively for far too long before turning it sharply to the side. The jolt, when it came, was sickening and sudden.

But it was going to be alright. The children were alright, and she was more or less alright, and Cal was here and he was going to take care of everything. That was what he kept telling her, and she usually believed him.

“The ambulance is coming,” he reported for the third time, listening to the sirens approach. “You’re going to be fine. As soon as you get back to the hospital, you’ll be fine. Gilly? Can you hear me?”

He was crouched on the ground beside the open car door, staring up at her. The position didn’t look very comfortable. “You should stand up,” she advised. “Are the girls okay?” She had asked the question before, but she wanted an update.

“They’re fine,” Cal assured her. “They’re alright. How are you? How’s your head?”

Gillian let the expression on her face answer that and leaned against the seat wearily. Once the accident had happened, time seemed to speed up, and Cal had been there wrenching her door open and quieting the screaming children so quickly, Gillian didn’t even have time to wonder how he knew to come. His hand reached up like he was going to touch her, then pulled back, afraid to put pressure on anything and cause her more pain. Gillian contented herself with gazing patiently into his eyes, breathing steadily to avoid thinking about the pain in her arm and her head. Cal returned the stare, concerned but calm, the wheels turning behind his eyes as he thought about what he needed to do next, so Gillian didn’t have to. It was his job, after all.

“Excuse me, sir.” Cal finally straightened up and moved out of the way as the EMTs approached, the ambulance parked just behind Gillian’s car.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Lucia and Charlotte squealed from the back seat, and Cal stepped around the open back door to lean in and reassure them.

“You alright? You feel alright? Don’t worry about Mummy, she’s gonna be fine. We’re all gonna go to the hospital now and get checked out, okay?” The two girls nodded dutifully. “You stay where you are for right now, though, alright then?” He stepped back around to face one of the EMTs. “Have a look at them, too, alright?” he suggested, and the woman nodded professionally. As far as Cal was concerned, everyone should stay exactly where they were until someone with medical training had assessed them—and even then he was going to take the girls straight to the hospital, because he’d read too many stories about the mysterious internal injuries suffered during car accidents that people didn’t even notice until it was too late. Presumably the servants would catch those, though, once they were back on protected land.

More EMTs arrived and Cal stepped back further, out of their way. Giving in to the emotions he felt roiling through him would only create an embarrassing and useless display that would impede those who were trying to help his wife and children. Sometimes one just had to stand back and wait, difficult though it was. But Cal was a rational person, and this was the rational thing to do. Gillian and the girls didn’t need him at the moment, from a practical standpoint, so he tried to think of something else useful he could be doing. He probably ought to call home and let Eli and Ria know—

And the next thing Cal knew he was standing in an alley behind a store, feeling the residual need to struggle against whoever was behind him holding him still. His movements slowed as he tried to assess the situation.

“Dr. Orange Light? You alright now?” He recognized the voice of the person holding him, though the thick, brawny arms clasped around his chest would have given it away as well.

“I think so,” Cal agreed cautiously. “Put me down, please.” After a brief hesitation Emmett Black Swan decided it was safe to comply and Cal felt himself released.

“I _am_ keeping an eye on you, though, Doctor,” Emmett pointed out. “No offense, but you don’t really want to get into trouble, do you?”

Cal wasn’t sure if he wanted to get into trouble or not. It was a curious sensation, being unable to remember the last few minutes of your life. Well, to remember them _clearly_ , anyway. “Where’s Gillian?” he asked suddenly, turning towards the gap between the two buildings. Of course, he knew _where_ she was—out there, beyond the buildings, on the street. What he was looking for was more of a status update.

Emmett stopped him from continuing closer to Gillian with one beefy arm across his path. “Sorry, Doctor, but you need to stay right here for a little while.”

“That b-----d hit Gillian’s car with his,” Cal remembered suddenly, eyes darkening with fury. “What did he say? That he was looking for a store and drifted into the wrong lane? Bloody tourists!” Cal vaguely recalled yelling at the other man, who had ventured from his car largely uninjured. He also recalled he didn’t want the man to _remain_ uninjured.

Cal turned slowly to look at Emmett. “Any chance this guy picked the fight with me? No,” he answered himself, seeing the expression on the younger man’s face. “Hmm. How odd.” Cal had a temper, it was true, but he usually tried to keep it in check. Becoming so infuriated that he actually lost track of time was a somewhat novel experience for him. He would have to examine it in more detail later. But for right now—“Well, I’d better go check on my wife,” he announced to his guard. Normally he’d be offended by the constraint of his liberty, but it seemed to have been necessary in this case.

Emmett was shaking his head, however. “Sorry, Dr. Orange Light. I don’t think I should let you go until Lady Gillian is on her way to the hospital. You’ve got the _roush_.”

Cal rolled his eyes impatiently. “I do _not_ have the _roush_ ,” he countered, trying to sound calm. “That is just superstitious nonsense. Now if you don’t mind—“

“Doctor, when I came along you were screaming at that other driver,” Emmett pointed out. Cal rubbed this throat, wondering why it felt a bit sore. “You were right up in his face, _this_ close to punching him. Lady Gillian told me I should get you out of the way before you started a fight. Do you remember any of that?”

Cal thought back; it was like trying to peer through a fog. Another sort of person might have been worried or at least frustrated, but Cal found the displacement interesting, from a clinical standpoint. Although he would certainly feel a lot better at the moment if he could go and keep an eye on Gillian again. “Hmm, I think I _do_ remember making a few choice remarks to that lowlife,” he admitted, with some glee. “Oh, d—n, they were all in Common, though, so he didn’t understand them.” Cal felt disappointed by this, but that reaction, at least, seemed normal to him.

“It’s the _roush_ ,” Emmett repeated, shaking his head. “And _roush_ plus _herdaya_ in this case. Not a good combination for keeping the peace in town.”

“The _roush_ is merely the normal reaction of people whose loved ones are threatened,” Cal lectured, as he had many times before. “It’s perfectly understandable to be angry when someone hurts your family. But assigning this ridiculous fairytale concept to that anger only minimizes the responsibility of those who seek vengeance. It becomes an excuse for reciprocal acts of violence. It is _not_ a real phenomenon.”

He could see his recitation had not impressed Emmett in the slightest. “It felt pretty real to me and Edward and Jasper when Bella was hit by that car a few years ago,” he commented matter-of-factly.

Darkwood members were not generally given to violence. But when Bella Black Swan had been struck by a car while riding her bike around town—another bloody tourist, too busy looking for a restaurant to watch the road—the accident site had nearly turned into a massacre scene, with all three Black Swan husbands turning on the unfortunate driver. Hmm, Cal thought he recalled that they had been quite well-behaved at first—at least until the ambulance arrived. Interesting.

That didn’t prove anything, though, not to Cal. The _herdaya_ was a real connection; you could test it in a laboratory and prove its existence. Anyway, it was natural to experience heightened emotions when your wife and children were injured, no matter what nationality or culture you were from. Sometimes the people who seemed the most calm on the surface—Jasper Black Swan, say—actually had the strongest emotions coursing through them, awaiting the proper trigger to appear. But none of that, in any way, pointed to the existence of some kind of—berserker rage connected to the protection of one’s family, some kind of temporary insanity during which acts of far more violence that were normal for an individual might be committed. The Darkwood Valley Punitive Committee didn’t agree with Cal, of course, which in his opinion just popularized the _roush_ nonsense even further; but he could see Emmett wasn’t going to be convinced any time soon.

And, Cal had to admit to himself, he didn’t really understand what _had_ happened just then, why he’d been calm one minute and so thoroughly lost his temper the next; and until he figured it out, or until Gillian was on the move, maybe it _was_ best if he kept some distance between them, for everyone’s sake.

Gillian, meanwhile, had lost her own calm demeanor, and at the worst possible time. She was sitting on the back of the ambulance with two very young EMTs dabbing at the cut on her forehead and fitting her arm into a sling—she had seen them both around town many times in a non-professional capacity; one might have been an acquaintance of Alice—while the two girls she’d been taking to dance class sobbed and squealed beside her, practically fighting with each other to cling to her one good arm.

They had been declared superficially unharmed by the EMTs, but they were in no fit mental state to determine if anything actually hurt or not, in Gillian’s opinion, and she was having to breathe deeply just to tamp down on the panic that wanted to scream that her children needed to go to the hospital _now_. Once they got through the doors—once they got into the parking lot, actually—the servants would know if there was really anything wrong with them, the doctors would help them. But here they were vulnerable, almost too vulnerable for her to handle.

_Semi-protected land_ , she told herself over and over as first one girl, then the other, tugged on her arm. The whole island was semi-protected land. The women didn’t have to cover their hair, no one had to dress quite as conservatively, and, most importantly, no one could die before their time. That was what they had decided when they first moved to Eastport. Not that they had made this declaration public, of course, because it was far too hard to explain and anyway there would always be someone who complained about its consequences; but the Darkwood adults simply weren’t comfortable letting their children loose on an island where they might be—well, the most common fear was that they’d be hit by a car, in fact. But on semi-protected land, at least they wouldn’t be _killed_ if they were hit by a car. Gillian tried to remember this, to remember the exact wording of the Order, to recite it to herself.

Of course, what did ‘before their time’ really mean? The servants had suggested the language, which Cal had rightly pointed out at the time gave them a huge loophole—if a fifty-year-old had a heart attack on the street and died, were they going to say it was ‘just his time’? But it was either that or nothing, so of course they took it; and Gillian, who had taken to reading the obituaries in the town paper regularly, so far had seen no evidence that they were splitting hairs on the matter. According to her slightly obsessive research—well, in the winter she couldn’t really work in the garden, after all—the number of deaths of those below eighty-five years in town had dropped almost to zero, and the seeming exceptions so far turned out to be those who were technically outside the island’s bounds at the time, either on land or water.

“Mommy! Mommy! Where’s Daddy? What happened to Daddy?!” The piercing voices of the two girls intruded upon Gillian’s attempt at rational thought. “Is Daddy hurt? Where did Daddy go?”

“Daddy’s fine, he’ll be back soon,” Gillian insisted, in what she feared was not a very soothing tone. “He just went to take care of something for us.” She wondered if even a six-year-old could see through that lie.

“Why was Daddy yelling at that man?” Charlotte demanded, unused to seeing her father lose his temper like that.

“That’s the man whose car hit us!” Lucia informed her sister sharply. “Daddy was yelling at him because he’s _bad_!”

“Is he bad, Mommy? Why did he hit us? Where did Daddy go? Is Daddy mad at us? Mommy! Mommy!”

“Girls, could you please just—“ Gillian’s head hurt, her arm hurt, her mind was spinning, and she thought she might kill her children just so she could concentrate on saving their lives. What she needed was a little help here, please. “Girls, just be quiet, please, just calm down—“

“Mum! Are you okay?”

A quick answer to her prayer, which Gillian very much appreciated. “I’m fine,” she told Luke, who had come bounding up out of nowhere. “I’ll _be_ fine,” she amended, seeing his dubious expression. “Please, take the girls, okay? Go with your brother,” she urged Charlotte and Lucia. “They need to go to the hospital,” she added to Luke, trying to sound serious but not desperate. “They really need to go there and be looked at, and I don’t know when—“

As usual at the scene of an incident, when you didn’t understand what was going on, what the proper procedure was, everything seemed chaotic and frustratingly slow. Gillian was ready to _walk_ to the hospital at this point—it was only a few blocks in a town this size—but she had a feeling that wouldn’t be a wise idea. And she had to figure out for herself what was a wise idea and what wasn’t at the moment.

“Sure, Mum, don’t worry, I’ll take them,” Luke assured her, sounding comfortingly adult. “Come on, come on, girls, let’s wait over here with Emma, okay? Come on, be a big girl, then.” Luke herded the two girls over to the sidewalk, out of the way, where Emma embraced them and tried to calm them down. Gillian found herself feeling profoundly grateful that Luke had met a girl like Emma so early in his life, and that they would have so much time to get to know each other before they got married. She would make a good First Lady for him, Gillian was sure of it. And Luke would make an excellent clan leader. Steady, reliable, responsible—

“ _That’s_ the guy who hit you?” Gillian heard vaguely from the sidewalk. And the next thing she knew her steady, responsible son was headed out into the street, shouting some impressively dirty curses—in Common Tongue, fortunately—at the driver of the other car.

“Luke!” exclaimed Emma, her jaw on the ground.

The teenager pushed unseeing past the deputy who was talking to the driver, determined to tell the other man exactly what he thought of him. And possibly even worse, which was about when the sheriff decided to intervene. The sheriff who happened to be Emma’s father, by the way.

“Luke, would you calm down—back away, you’re not helping—ah, h—l.” That was when Luke tried to throw a punch at the other driver and found himself pinned to the dented hood of Gillian’s car by the sheriff and deputy, still shouting. “Hey! Mr. Emmett!” Sheriff Burke called. “Got another for you!”

“Oh, G-d,” Gillian sighed, slumping against the side of the ambulance. At least the girls were being looked after.

“—no, no, you can’t come into town, stay home,” Cal snapped into his cell phone, pacing the alleyway he was confined to. “Why are you arguing with me? _Don’t_ argue with me!” He looked up as his son was deposited, squirming, into the isolated corner. “Nice use of imagery,” he complimented the boy, “but you should’ve hit the b-----d. No, I was talking to Luke,” Cal added into the phone. “ _You_ are not to leave the grounds, and I will make that an order if I have to! No? Good. No, I know. I’ll explain later, okay? Bye. How’s your mum? Did you see her, or just immediately go for the throat?” he questioned Luke, who looked slightly more sensible than he had initially.

The teenager seemed surprised to find himself in the alley with his father and a burly guard. “What just happened?”

“It’s the _roush_ ,” Emmett replied confidently.

“Really?” Luke asked with interest. “That’s not what I thought it would be like”

“It’s not the _roush_!” Cal countered impatiently. Emmett just shook his head, as if slightly saddened by the delusions some people labored under. “Did you see your mother and the girls?” he demanded of Luke again.

“Oh, yeah. Mum’s in the back of the ambulance. She’s got her arm in a sling,” Luke reported. His father growled in frustration while Emmett looked even more resolute. “Emma’s got the girls, she’ll get them to the hospital. So when I hit Brandon,” he went on, changing the subject abruptly, “that wasn’t the _roush_?”

“No, because the _roush_ doesn’t exist!” Cal insisted. “It’s a myth!”

Emmett took a more objective approach. “Do you clearly remember hitting that guy? Were you aware of it when it was happening?” Luke nodded. “Then it wasn’t the _roush_.”

“You just lost your temper,” Cal told him with irritation. “Like you did just now.”

“It wasn’t the same feeling at all,” Luke judged thoughtfully. “It was like—an out-of-body experience. This time, I mean. Not before.”

Cal rolled his eyes. “What do you know about out-of-body experiences?”

“But I would’ve thought, if Emma was involved, it’d be _more_ likely to be the _roush_ ,” Luke went on. Cal growled again as his words were ignored.

“It usually seems to involve physical danger,” Emmett offered. “Had the guy you hit actually _hurt_ Miss Emma, or threatened to?”

Luke’s eyes flashed in a very un-Luke-like way as he contemplated this. “No, he just insulted her. But if he _had_ hurt her—“

Cal was staring at his son with a mixture of interest and disapproval. “I have never seen that expression on your face, ever,” he decided. “Maybe you need some anger management therapy.”

Emmett snorted. “Maybe you can get a group discount.”

“Yeah,” Luke agreed somewhat indignantly, “I bet _you_ totally flipped out on that guy!”

Cal sighed and leaned against the wall next to his son. “Not as much as I would’ve liked,” he finally admitted. Luke started to laugh but Cal cut him off. “It’s not funny. We should be out there takin’ care of your mum. She’s gonna be mad as h—l at me.”

Luke could see his point. “Well, Emma’s there, at least. Do girls get the _roush_?”

Cal rolled his eyes again while Emmett looked uncertain. “I’ve never heard of it. Maybe in Lightwood clans?” Emmett suggested.

Cal shook his head, slightly disgusted by the ignorance on display. “It’s called the _seema_ ,” he informed them, “like a lioness protecting her young, I suppose. That’s how it usually comes out, when a woman’s kids are in danger.”

Luke and Emmett stared at him. “Wait, so, the _roush_ is totally fake, but this _seema_ thing isn’t?” the teenager scoffed.

Cal gave them a look that conveyed his disappointment with their lack of comprehension. Granted, they had a lot of popular culture nonsense to overcome. “As I have already said”—although Luke might not have been around for it—“it is completely understandable to become upset, even angry, when your loved ones are in danger, and even to _act_ upon those feelings for a protective purpose. But the _roush_ and the _seema_ , as traditionally described, always happen _after_ the fact,” he pointed out.

“After the cars have already crashed”—to use a random example—“there is no point in attacking the driver at fault if he’s just sitting there. It doesn’t protect, it doesn’t help, in fact it usually just makes things worse. People get very emotional and they just lose control for a minute. Then,” he added venomously, “some crackpot mysto-psychologist who barely comes up for air from the Ancient Archives gives the phenomenon fancy names and convinces people it’s not actually their fault that they committed unjustifiable acts of vengeance.”

Luke and Emmett blinked at Cal as he finished his tirade, the alley awkwardly quiet. Finally Luke asked, with a narrow gaze, “Did you get a black eye from someone once, who got off because he said it was the _roush_?”

“No,” Cal informed him succinctly, but there was a flicker of something that the teenager was observant enough to catch.

“Broken nose, then?”

“It was a broken jaw, actually,” Cal clarified with ill grace, “well, potentially, I mean. And potential injury in a whole other area of evidence that should not be allowed in a rational legal—“

“But getting back to the _roush_ guy,” Luke interrupted, refusing to be sidetracked.

Cal glared at him, disliking his own techniques being used against him. Well, then, he shouldn’t have taught them so well. Emmett waited eagerly for his answer. “My intellectual opinion on this issue was formed _long_ before that incident occurred,” he insisted coolly. Luke looked like he was going to question the veracity of that statement, but then he saw the sudden change in his father’s expression. “Gillian’s heading towards the hospital,” he announced.

“So’s Emma,” Luke agreed, letting the sense of her changing location into his conscious mind for a moment.

Emmett shook his head. “So you don’t believe in the _roush_ , but the _herdaya_ bond is still okay? Glad to know you haven’t abandoned _all_ the mystical stuff, Dr. Orange Light,” he said with a smirk.

Cal did not deign to reply to that comment. “Well, with your permission, of course,” he said acidly instead, “we would like to go to the hospital.”

Emmett took a peek around the corner of the building. “Looks clear,” he decided. “I guess you guys can go. Hey,” he added as Cal turned away, disgruntled, “just trying to keep each other out of trouble, you know.”

“Yeah, it’s okay, thanks, Mr. Emmett,” Luke assured him, when it was obvious his father wasn’t going to reply. “He’s just trying to help,” he reminded Cal as they exited the alley back to the sidewalk.

“Well, he _could’ve_ helped by rearranging this idiot’s facial features for me,” Cal grumbled, nodding at the other wrecked car as they passed it.

Luke snorted. “And _I’m_ the one that needs anger management therapy.” They were quiet for a block or two. “So you _really_ don’t believe in the _roush_?” he questioned again.

“Look, just shut up about it, alright?” Cal shot back, not entirely unkindly. “The bottom line is, we’re responsible for our own actions, no matter what motivates them.”

Luke nodded slowly. It was like what his mother had told him when she found out he and Emma were _herdaya_ —he might feel overly protective of her sometimes, but he would have to learn to control those impulses. Maybe in the distant past he could’ve locked Emma in a tower to keep her safe, but this was the modern world—especially in America, things were supposed to be just a little more equitable than that. Not to mention what Emma’s own objections to that scheme would be.

And as much as he might _like_ to retaliate against someone who had hurt a member of his family—or even somehow found himself _trying_ to do it, without consciously making the decision—his father was right, it was only going to make the situation worse, and the _roush_ excuse just blurred the lines between things that were easier or harder to control. All this time, for example, Luke hadn’t felt at all bad about hitting Brandon because he thought it had been the _roush_ , and thus beyond his control. Which wasn’t exactly the best attitude to carry around.

“So who were you yelling at on the phone?” Luke asked as the hospital entered their sight. “Ladru?”

Cal snorted. “Of course not. Your ladru knows better than to argue with me.” With Eli’s abilities someone could easily get seriously injured, even killed, in an emotional situation— _roush_ or no _roush_. And Eli was just as aware of that as Cal. “It was your madru,” Cal went on, not looking forward to the scene that awaited him at home.

Luke smirked. “Yeah, she’d get the _seema_ for sure,” he deadpanned.

Cal rolled his eyes as they stopped just outside the hospital doors. “Alright, here’s the plan,” he began. “You are in charge of finding Charlotte and Lucia and taking them home, _if_ they’ve been cleared by the doctors. If you have to get someone from home to pick you up, make sure it’s one of your sisters, okay?” Luke nodded dutifully. “I’m going to find your mother and wait for her. And if you see that—“ Cal cleared his throat. “—other driver, do _not_ engage, alright? Try to rise above the lizard brain.”

“Yeah, you, too.”

**

“No, I’m still waitin’ for her,” Cal sighed into the phone as he lurked around the corner from the room Gillian was in. He knew she was in there. She knew he was out here. They both knew the other knew. But Cal had seen no indication that Gillian actually wanted him _in_ the room. All she would have to do was mention it to one of the green-clad orderlies and he would be summoned. But that hadn’t happened yet.

“Sprained wrist and a mild concussion, is all. Nothing serious.” He tried to report the injuries casually, to convey their minor nature, but his free hand clenched into a fist so hard that his fingernails bit into his palm.

“Well, don’t coddle them too much,” he continued, glancing around the corner at Gillian’s door again. “She has lost _all_ objectivity,” he added in an exasperated tone. “Well, I _would_ tell her that, if I were there. They’re not gonna be traumatized for life, not unless she keeps bringing it up.” He sighed as he listened to Eli, who was being refreshingly calm and rational. “No, I know, I know. Yeah, we’ll wait until tomorrow and see how she’s handling it.”

Ria, by contrast, was apparently totally freaked out by the accident, even though Lucia and Charlotte had been returned home completely unharmed. “Yeah, good idea, do _not_ let her see that. Do they think they can fix it, or is it totaled? Wow. Did you understand what you just said?” Eli was the motor vehicle enthusiast in the family—well, Eli _and_ Ria. Cal couldn’t care less about how the thing worked as long as it did. “Well, I don’t care, whichever’s easiest. She might not want to drive that one again anyway.” He somehow doubted, however, that buying Gillian a new car would get him back in her good graces. “No, don’t wait for us, I don’t know how long we’ll be. She’ll probably go straight to bed anyway. Yeah, okay. Bye.”

Cal hung up the phone and dropped it in his pocket as he saw Dr. White Stag approach. They bowed slightly in greeting, then the medical doctor handed Cal Gillian’s chart to look at. “Nothing serious at all,” he reassured Cal, who did not look especially relieved.

“So I’ve heard. What’s this?”

Dr. White Stag looked at the line he was pointing to. “Mild analgesic for the pain, and a mild sedative so she can get some sleep tonight.”

“Mild, huh? For _mild_ injuries,” Cal commented with some sarcasm. “Tylenol is a mild analgesic, and you don’t need a prescription for it.”

Dr. White Stag _was_ good, Cal had to admit. The flicker of annoyance that crossed his face was _very_ subtle. “It’s a little _less_ mild than Tylenol,” he agreed. “But I doubt she’ll need to take them long, she’ll probably be back to normal in just a few days.” Cal snorted disbelievingly. Gillian was angry at him—really angry—and it was difficult for him to accept that _anything_ would be normal again. An irrational response, he knew. Yet there it was.

“Do you believe in the _roush_ , Doctor?” he asked White Stag suddenly. And d—n if that didn’t even elicit a microexpression, or barely any, before the other man smirked a little.

“I heard you and Luke almost caused some trouble at the scene,” he replied instead, in a sort of sympathetic yet slightly teasing way.

“Do you practice expressions in front of the mirror?” Cal demanded.

“I do, actually.” And that was probably true. “I think the _roush_ is more your specialty than mine,” he added, continuing with the marvelous non-answers.

“It must be hard to have an honest conversation in your house,” Cal needled. “It’s all deflect, deflect, deflect.”

“That’s how we like it,” White Stag replied mildly. “Civil and non-confrontational.” This was also probably true, which Cal found pointless and inefficient. “Maybe you’re the one who needs the sedative,” he observed a moment later, watching Cal’s uncharacteristic fidgeting.

“What is she _doing_ in there?” he asked, semi-rhetorically, by way of response. “Are you running more tests or something?”

“She’s probably getting dressed,” the doctor suggested. “She can leave whenever she wants. Of course, come back immediately if there are any problems.” Cal nodded absently, checking the door again. Another pointless gesture, really, he would _know_ if she were standing at it. “The other driver—“ Dr. White Stag continued, and that was sufficient to draw Cal’s immediate attention, “was saying something about insurance information. I assured him there was no need to speak to you at all,” he added quickly, seeing the expression on Cal’s face, “and that the clinic, as your employer, would supply any information required.”

“Is he as big of an a-s as I’ve been imagining?” Cal wanted to know.

“I think that might fall within the bounds of doctor-patient confidentiality,” White Stag replied, but there was a clear ‘yes’ on his face.

“How bad was he hurt? Was he hurt worse than Gillian?” Dr. White Stag merely blinked, but Cal was disappointed. “No? At least could’ve gotten a broken leg or something.”

“Then he’d have to stay around town longer,” the doctor pointed out, which seemed like a bad thing. “I believe he’ll be gone yet today.”

“Where’s he live, then?” Cal insisted, watching the other man’s face carefully. “Inside Maine? Outside Maine. New England? Big city? No. Small town?”

“Lord Cal,” Dr. White Stag admonished, and Cal sighed and gave up. “The sheriff was here making his report. _Hopefully_ the other driver won’t decide to press any attempted assault charges against you or Luke.”

“Yes, we must keep the record clean, mustn’t we,” Cal muttered snidely. “Hmm, she’s moving around more,” he noted, staring at Gillian’s door as though he could see through it, which he almost could.

A bland young man walked into Cal’s eyeline from the side. “Dr. Orange Light, your wife is asking for you.”

“Thanks.” Cal handed Gillian’s chart back to White Stag and charged toward the door he’d been staring at for so long, without a backwards glance. Dr. White Stag was used to his behavior by this point, however, and didn’t let it bother him.

Cal paused just outside the door, suddenly uncertain of how to proceed. It was an unfamiliar feeling and one he didn’t like very much. The number of times Gillian had been really and truly angry at him was vanishingly small, considering how long they’d been married and what an a-s he could be sometimes. Of course the number of times she’d been mildly irritated or exasperated at him was probably unusually high, but Cal saw that as merely par for the course, as they said around here. What made everything worse was the fact that Cal was quite angry at _himself_ —no need to dance around _that_ fact.

After a moment he turned the door handle, because Gillian had stopped moving around so much—he assumed that meant she’d gotten dressed enough that she wouldn’t mind him opening the door. He peered in cautiously at first and saw that she was lying on the bed, so he slipped in quietly and shut the door behind him. Gillian had her skirt and blouse on, though the shirt was untucked, and her suitjacket lay across her lap. One wrist was encased in a complicated-looking brace and a bandage covered a square of her forehead; a dark blue sling sat at the end of the unmade bed, near Gillian’s bare feet. Her hospital gown had been tossed in a nearby chair.

She looked pale, of course, with a tightness in her face that suggested stress and tension even in her moment of relaxation; but Cal had actually been expecting worse, to be honest, cuts or bruises or something like that. Well, it was a car accident, not a bar fight, he reminded himself—and he was only looking at her face. Anger surged through him suddenly, like lava spewing from a volcano, as he thought about the person who had _caused_ the injuries, and he had to put a hand on the foot of the bed to steady himself—and to keep from tearing back out of the room, roaming the halls of the hospital in search of the other driver.

“Cal?” He opened his eyes, not realizing he’d closed them, and saw that Gillian had opened hers as well. The anger faded instantly, replaced with concern.

“Hi,” he began, feeling unusually awkward. He wasn’t sure if he should move from his position at the foot of the bed or not. “How do you feel?”

Not great, was the short, understated answer, he read from her expression. But at least as much of her discomfort was due to emotional as to physical reasons—Darkwood members in the Valley, and even here in America, rarely found themselves in need of a visit to the hospital and that experience in itself was stressful in its unfamiliarity.

Gillian started to sit up and Cal moved to assist her, noting each touch that brought a wince to her face and focusing on the areas that didn’t. “Help me put my jacket on,” she requested, her voice flat and tired.

“I’m not sure it’ll fit over the brace,” Cal hesitated, comparing the tailored sleeve with her augmented wrist. The sleeve of her blouse, he noted, had been unbuttoned to accommodate the extra girth.

He also quickly noted that this wasn’t the response she was looking for. “Then cut it along the seam,” she told him impatiently, as though this course of action should have been obvious to him. “I want to put my jacket on. I’m freezing.”

“Okay,” Cal agreed mildly. “Do you want to wear mine? Maybe that would—“ No, her expression said, cutting him off. “Okay.” He started looking around for a pair of scissors.

“Your jacket is too heavy,” Gillian went on, unnecessarily. He tried to interpret it as just a manifestation of her general tension level. “Just cut it along the seam, don’t damage the fabric,” she added to him sharply. “I can fix it later.”

“Um… here, can you do that?” Cal asked the orderly who had drifted over with the scissors—without using the door. “This sleeve, about halfway up.” He turned back to Gillian, looking for some other way he could help. “Do you want your shoes? Here, I’ll—“

“No,” she snapped, and he looked back at her, halfway through reaching for her high heels in the corner. She seemed to suddenly realize it was ridiculous to think she wouldn’t need shoes to walk out of the hospital and sighed, rubbing her uninjured hand over her eyes. “Yes, please,” she corrected in a contrite tone. “Thank you.”

Cal knelt to help her slip on her shoes, then stood and took the jacket from the orderly, carefully easing the mutilated sleeve over the brace. Then he sat down on the bed next to Gillian. “What else can I do for you?”

She sighed again, an even longer one this time, and leaned her head against his shoulder; he slipped his arm around her waist. His lips brushed the top of her head as they sat there silently. “I just need to rest for a minute,” she finally answered.

“Okay.” He saw the bottles from the pharmacy on the table near her purse. “Did you take one of the pain pills already?” She nodded against his shoulder. “How about one of the sedatives?”

This time she shook her head. “I didn’t want to take one of those until we got home.”

“Okay,” Cal agreed. “We can leave whenever you want.”

After a few more moments Gillian seemed to gather her strength and sat up again. But her body language said she wasn’t quite ready to go home yet. In fact, it said they _weren’t_ going home until certain things were resolved. Cal took that as his cue.

“Gilly, um—I’m really sorry about what I did,” he told her plainly, looking her full in the face. “I don’t have any excuse for it. I should’ve been there to help you and the girls.”

“Yes, you should have,” she agreed, unmoved by his confession or the genuine shame he displayed. “I really needed you. The girls were hysterical, I didn’t understand what was going to happen with the ambulance and the police and the car, and then you just decided to start screaming at the other drive, for no reason.”

Cal winced at several points during her reasonably calm and entirely justified complaint, but he tried to take the chastising as well deserved. “It was a good thing Mr. Emmett happened to come along or you probably would’ve started a fight.”

Unfortunately Cal couldn’t hide his disappointment that he had not, in fact, gotten a few punches in. “I’ve never seen you act that way,” she added, which sent him right back into shame again. “I think it scared the girls. It scared me.”

Cal sighed and gently pulled her closer, kissing her temple. “I’m sorry, love,” he repeated. There wasn’t much else he could say—he couldn’t exactly _defend_ his actions to her. Or to anyone, really.

“It reminded me a little of that time in London, with Eli,” Gillian went on tentatively. She didn’t like to talk about that incident; no one did.

“Yeah, me too,” Cal admitted. He had been thinking about it all afternoon. “I remember Eli said he didn’t really _decide_ to…” He trailed off, knowing Gillian knew what he referred to and didn’t want to actually hear it said. “Well, I understand what he meant now.”

Gillian pulled back to look at him with disapproval. “You’re not going to say it was the _roush_ , are you? After all these years of _ranting_ to us about how it’s just a psychological fallacy to remove blame from—“

Well, he wouldn’t have called it _ranting_ , really. “No, no, I’m not,” he assured her. “Mr. Emmett, by the way, doesn’t believe me, but I think I may have made some progress with our surprisingly pugilistic son regarding personal responsibility.”

“That was very upsetting, too,” Gillian told him, leaning back against him. Cal couldn’t agree, personally, but tried to see it from her point of view. “I don’t know what he’s going to tell Emma. And the sheriff!”

“He should see she’ll be in good hands,” Cal answered, possibly without thinking it through all the way. If the look of disgust Gillian gave him was any indication. “I mean, he’s protective of his mother, that’s a good sign, right?” Cal attempted to salvage.

“How can you sit there and lecture about personal responsibility and not giving in to ‘barbaric’ impulses,” Gillian demanded, “when at the same time your expression so clearly says you wish you or Luke had broken that man’s neck?”

Cal blinked at her. “I guess the pain meds have kicked in, huh?”

Gillian did not appreciate that response. “I can’t be angry at you unless it’s in some kind of drug-induced haze?” she asked coldly.

“No, not at all. It’s just you’re quite a bit more lucid than a few minutes ago,” Cal explained. Or tried to. “Look, I’m not gonna say I’m not furious at that b-----d, because I _am_ ,” he told her forcefully. “Imagine how I felt when I looked over and realized it was _your_ car. When that _idiot_ was looking at the stores instead of the road.” Actually, Cal couldn’t remember another moment in his life when he’d been so scared—and he hadn’t exactly had an uneventful existence. “But just because I _wanted_ to,” he continued after a moment, “doesn’t mean I should’ve _tried_ to.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Gillian agreed. And somehow, despite being in agreement, she sounded like she was still arguing. “That goes for you _and_ Luke. You should’ve been—“ Her expression changed suddenly and Cal felt his heart twist in his chest. “I needed you,” Gillian finished, her eyes finally overflowing with tears.

Cal pulled her closer. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, love.” There wasn’t anything else he could say; he couldn’t go back in time and change what he’d done. He wanted to comfort her by promising he’d never do it again, but they both knew that would be a lie, or at least a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep. Considering he hadn’t expected, or consciously decided, to do anything so thoughtless _this_ time.

The clinical part of his mind, which he could never shut down even when he really wanted to, was eager to analyze the situation, even if the goal was to prevent it from occurring again. This was the part that noted, for example, that he’d been completely focused on Gillian and the girls until the EMTs had arrived and he couldn’t really do anything for them—of course, just being there, steady and able to assist, making phone calls, quieting the girls, would have been an enormous comfort to Gillian, but it wasn’t, perhaps, as _strictly_ necessary to preserving her health and safety. Someone else had arrived on the scene to help, freeing Cal to do something else. It was an intriguing point that had parallels to the Black Swan incident a few years earlier and to Luke’s actions today as well—though curiously, not to Eli’s London situation. If he could—

And then the clinical part finally shut up, because his wife was crying in his arms in a hospital room, and he had enough to make up for already. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, love,” he told her. “The girls are fine. You’ll be fine, in just a few days. The car will—“ Cal paused. “Well, you know, I never really liked that car anyway. It was kind of ugly. We can just get a new one.”

Gillian laughed a little bit, through her tears, and Cal thought for a moment they were done, but then her eyes pooled up again. “But they _could_ have—“

“None of that,” Cal told her firmly. “We’re not gonna get into what-ifs. You’re fine, the girls are fine, everyone’s fine.” Much as he still wished to cause mild injuries to the other driver himself, he _was_ glad the man hadn’t been hurt in the accident—Gillian probably would’ve found a way to blame herself for that. “So stop crying now, and let’s go home.” Some tears were a natural release of tension; but after a certain point they just fed back into the negative emotions.

Gillian nodded, sniffling. She understood what he was thinking and tried to calm down, wiping at her face with the tissues sitting nearby. She finished dressing—she couldn’t possible go out with her blouse untucked, after all—gathered up her things, and stepped gingerly into the hall with Cal at her elbow. She wasn’t dizzy, really, she assured him multiple times, just tired, and the mild painkiller was perhaps a little _too_ mild, or maybe just hadn’t kicked in yet—

“What do you mean, there’s no place to rent a _car_ in this town?” said an unpleasantly loud voice from the nurses’ desk, and Cal couldn’t help but turn to look.

“Well, sir, what we usually do in these cases is—“ the nurse began to explain patiently, but her voice faded out as Cal recognized the other driver, the one who had run into Gillian and the girls because he wasn’t paying attention—

“Cal! Cal, I need you!” Shaking his head suddenly Cal stopped—not having consciously started to walk—and looked back at Gillian, who was now an arm’s length away. “Cal, please, I need you to take me home,” she pleaded, and not for the first time.

He blinked, momentarily confused, then identified the expression on her face and stepped back to her side, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Of course,” Cal assured her. “Of course, you need to get home. Let’s go.” There was certainly nothing good that could come of a ‘conversation’ with the other man, after all.

They passed through the lobby of the hospital and out into the parking lot, where Cal’s car was waiting for them. “There you go,” he murmured, settling her into the passenger seat. “Can we get the seatbelt ‘round this? There, that alright? You comfortable?” Gillian nodded. “Okay, then—“

“Cal!” Gillian was shaking the lapel of his jacket with her good hand and stopped only when he leaned back down to check on her, slightly disoriented.

“We’re gonna go home now,” he promised firmly, and she cautiously let him go. “We need to go home now,” he muttered to himself as he walked around the car to the driver’s side. “Gillian needs to go home and rest. The girls need to see that she’s okay. I need to take her home. I need to stay with her, _I_ need to make sure the girls are okay—“ He looked over at Gillian as he pulled his own seatbelt on. “This has been a very weird day.”

“No kidding,” she agreed with a sigh. “Can we go home now?”

“That’s exactly what we’re gonna do,” Cal assured her, pulling the car onto the street.

Gillian distracted herself from her discomfort by watching his face closely. “Cal?” she asked with some concern as they left town.

“Sorry, what was I saying?” he responded.

“You weren’t saying anything,” she told him worriedly. “Maybe we should pull over and call—“

“No, I’m fine, we’re almost home,” Cal insisted. “I just thought we were talking about—well, I guess I was just thinking about it.”

“What?” Gillian prompted blankly.

“Oh. Your father, actually,” Cal replied unexpectedly. “And how I would like to beat him to death with a large stick.” He seemed to think about what he’d said only afterwards. “Hmm. How interesting. I don’t know why I was thinking about your father just now.”

Gillian sighed and slumped back in her seat. “This has been a very weird day,” she agreed wearily.

**

Cal couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t that late really, just late enough that he didn’t want to put the effort into understanding a book or TV show, but too early to drop off to sleep. He was alone in his bed, which didn’t help matters—he found he liked having someone else there, breathing quietly, even if all they did was sleep. But Gillian had gone to her own bed as soon as they got home and didn’t need to be disturbed; and Ria was far too angry at him to contemplate sharing his bed.

_That_ particular offense Cal did not feel at all bad about; this was _his_ clan, g-------t, and if he ordered her to stay home, she _would_. He could always tell the servants to not let her leave the grounds, but that was considered quite extreme, really; and anyway, it shouldn’t come to that. As his wife, she was expected to do what he said, just like Gillian—and Eli and the children, for that matter. If she found that attitude excessively patriarchal—well, she should’ve joined a Lightwood clan. She would still have been taking orders from her clan leader, but at least that would be another woman.

But there was no use getting worked up over it. Ria _had_ stayed home, she hadn’t defied him, even if she had done it only furiously and under great protest. He would let her be angry for a couple of days and vent to Eli, and then she would calm down and Cal could do something nice for her—not to apologize or to make up, but just to remind her that there was more to their marriage.

In fact that particular part was just a tiny fraction of the whole, but Ria tended to focus on the negative sometimes. In this case he understood her concern; her children—Lucia in particular, but all the children were somewhat communal—had been injured, or at least shaken up, and she wanted to see them immediately and reassure them. But as much as Cal found that perfectly reasonable, he also wasn’t willing to risk his hot-tempered wife making a scene at the hospital, not after what had happened to him and Luke. Ria didn’t even need the _seema_ excuse—she’d be happy to take the other driver down completely of her own volition. And that wouldn’t have helped Gillian at all. Maybe when she was calmer he would try to explain that.

Fortunately Cal could depend on Eli to keep his head in a crisis—it was a little bit funny to think of depending on Eli, even after all these years, because normally he was content to let Cal make the decisions and preferred to put a humorous slant on any situation they were in. But it was always a mistake to underestimate Eli. Cal theorized that at least some of his current laidback attitude was a direct response to his previous lifestyle and occupation, when the decisions he made had deadly consequences. Now he tried not to make any decisions at all, really, at least nothing major, and to content himself with whatever Cal wanted. Naturally this frustrated Ria, but Cal didn’t mind at all. He liked people who did what he told them to do. Which made Ria even more of an anomaly, but sometimes you needed a little variety.

But when he was needed, Eli always stepped up. Sometimes his eyes went a little cold when he did so, especially if the situation was serious, like he was pulling his former self out of a dusty box and putting it on. But eventually things calmed down and the look faded, and he went back to being the Eli that everybody loved. As opposed to the Eli who could snap your neck in a second. Or Piotr, that’s what he had gone by in the past. Cal had known it would never come to him ordering the servants to keep Ria at home; at worst, Eli could do the job just as well.

Although the emotional repercussions through the family would’ve been much worse, since Ria often saw Eli as her confidante against Cal’s inscrutable will. Right now, for example, Ria was probably complaining to him about the day’s events—and Eli was doing his part by listening sympathetically, talking her through it, and attempting to explain Cal’s reasoning in some small, non-threatening way. Which contributed a lot towards calming Ria down and helping her understand things Cal had no intention of explaining himself. So, even when he _wasn’t_ forced to be in charge—Cal could always depend on Eli to help the family. He would have to do something nice for him as well.

A throat cleared by the doorway, announcing the presence of a servant in a non-startling way. “Excuse me, Lord Cal, but Lady Gillian is asking to see you, if you’re awake.”

Of course he was awake. In fact, he was out of bed as soon as the servant mentioned Gillian. The question was, why was _she_ awake? “Is she alright?” Cal asked, padding out of his room into the hall.

“Her physical condition is unchanged,” was the reply, which Cal supposed was preferable to it getting worse.

He knocked gently on Gillian’s door then entered the bedroom. She was squirming around the large bed, obviously failing in her attempt to get comfortable with the arm brace and the various aches and pains—he could see the bruises appearing on her bare arms now, fresh enough to be from the accident earlier that day. “You alright, love?” he asked, surveying the situation.

“No! I can’t—“ She turned over again, kicked her feet free of the sheet, then started trying to pull the coverlet back over her.

Cal moved to intervene. “Stop that. You’ll pull a muscle. C’mere, get up.” He coaxed her from the bed and held her gently, rubbing her back while the servants straightened out the twisted sheets. “Okay, come on, let’s get back in bed, alright? You need to sleep. Did you get any sleep this afternoon?”

They curled up in the readjusted blankets together, Gillian’s braced wrist resting on Cal’s side. “Some,” she admitted half-heartedly. The dark circles under her eyes said that ‘some’ wasn’t very much.

“The sedative isn’t working?” Cal questioned with concern. He’d watched her take it himself.

“No, it’s—“ She sighed against his shoulder. “I keep _thinking_.”

“Gilly,” Cal admonished sternly, “I told you, no what-ifs! They really aren’t necessary. Just—“ She glanced up at him and Cal saw he was on the wrong track. “Oh. What’ve you been thinkin’ about, then?”

She hesitated for only an instant. “I’m sorry I was mad at you earlier!” She seemed relieved to have it out in the open.

Cal, however, was less than pleased by the admission. “Gilly, you don’t—“

“No, I’ve been thinking about it,” she assured him, “and I really shouldn’t have said some of those things to you. You—you do so much for us, and I shouldn’t—“

Cal sighed and pulled her closer. “Okay, love.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, sniffling.

He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead. “No, it’s okay, love, it’s alright. Right?” He tipped her face up to his, trying to make eye contact and get her to smile. Finally she did so, if thinly. “That’s my good girl. You gonna go to sleep now? You want me stay?”

The answer was obvious, but Gillian seemed much happier as she murmured her agreement and curled up against Cal even more. She had nothing to apologize for, that went without saying in Cal’s mind; but it made her feel better to apologize, took a weight off her shoulders that was interfering with her recovery. Cal understood the issues this compulsion stemmed from and with a patient he would have confronted them and wrestled them to the ground. But Gillian didn’t respond very well to that particular method, and anyway he didn’t want to treat her like a patient. It was easier to accept the apology, to let her feel better, then they would both pretend to forget it and she wouldn’t be angry at him anymore.

Cal couldn’t stand to live with a lie, with something important unsaid and unacknowledged; but he saw no evidence that Gillian was just repressing her anger in times like these—she genuinely seemed to feel better. And she didn’t seem to have a problem asserting her authority in the family otherwise. She just didn’t like to be angry at him. Even when he deserved it. Especially when he deserved it. That emotional response was set long before she’d met Cal, however, so it didn’t make him feel guilty to accept the apology—he could be angry at himself just fine, without anyone else’s assistance.

Besides—there was still Ria to consider. And he knew _she_ would take a little bit longer to get over her anger.


End file.
